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By 06/09/2021
West Marin customers should vote no on North Marin Water District’s proposed water rate increase and urge the district to revisit its drought plan. The rate increase, which will be considered at a June 22 hearing, hinges on a structure that encourages excessive landscape use that draws salt into the lower wells. By failing to create conservation tiers that reflect a sustainable yield, the district is able to use salt intrusion as a false justification for rushing to build another well one whose potential impacts have not been adequately studied.
The drought plan discriminates against those already conserving and growing families by mandating a universal 25 percent reduction from 2013 levels that year being the last so-called normal year. Has your household size increased since 2013? If we have to go back eight years to find a “normal” year, how can that be normal? Drought is the new normal.
Utilities in Sonoma, Marin counties ask customers to reduce water use by 20 percent
By Eli Walsh
Phoenix Lake in Marin County (photo: Mark Tamayo)
MARIN COUNTY, Calif. - Eight public water utilities in Sonoma and Marin counties have called on customers to voluntarily reduce their water usage by 20 percent as the region faces worsening drought conditions.
The Water Advisory Committee to the Sonoma County Water Agency passed a resolution Monday asking residents to do so as water supply in the Russian River watershed and both Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma are at historic lows.
The committee includes representatives from water utilities under the Sonoma-Marin Saving Water Partnership, which includes the cities of Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Petaluma, Sonoma, Cotati, Healdsburg; the North Marin, Valley of the Moon and Marin Municipal Water Districts; the town of Windsor; California American Water - Larkfield District and Sonoma County Water Agency.